Specimens of Religious Scenes on Sino-Sogdian Funerary Monuments and Sogdian Ossuaries

Abstract

Richly embellished tombs of powerful Sogdian immigrants found in China have greatly increased our knowledge on Central Asians who were active along the so-called Silk Road during medieval times. Sino-Sogdian funerary monuments often display scenes such as banquets, hunts, and funerals with images of Sogdian Zoroastrian deities that offer interesting parallels with Sogdian paintings and ossuaries from pre-Islamic sites in modern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The comparative study of the representations of the passage into the Zoroastrian underworld in SinoSogdian art and several Sogdian ossuaries could shed new light on the identification of Zoroastrian deities and rituals.